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Chapter 29: Methods for the Dropping of Mind

So if you have a feeling for a certain sound, it is better to use it. Do not use an intellectual sound, it will be of no help because the sound has to be used to make a passage from the mind to the heart. So use some sound for which you have a deep love, a certain feeling.

If a Mohammedan uses “Ram,” it is very difficult, the word means nothing to him. That is why the two oldest religions never believe in conversion - Hinduism and Judaism. They are the two oldest religions, the two original religions, all other religions are just offshoots of these two. Christianity and Islam are offshoots of the Jewish tradition; Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism are offshoots of Hinduism. These two original religions never believed in conversion, and the reason was this: that you can convert a man intellectually, but you cannot convert a man from his heart. You can convert a Hindu into a Christian, you can convert a Christian into a Hindu, but the conversion will remain of the mind.

Deep down a converted Hindu remains a Hindu. He may go to a church and he may pray to Mary or to Jesus, but his prayer remains of the head. You cannot change the unconscious. And if you hypnotize him, you will find he is a Hindu. If you hypnotize him and let him reveal his unconscious, you will find he is a Hindu.

Hindus and Jews never believed in conversion because of this basic fact. You cannot change a man’s religion because you cannot change his heart and unconscious feelings. And if you try, then you disturb him, because you give him something which will remain on the surface and you divide him. Then he becomes a split personality. Deep down he is a Hindu; on the surface he is a Christian. He will use Christian sounds, mantras, which will not go deep, and he cannot use Hindu sounds which can go deep. You have disturbed his life.

So find a certain sound for which you have some feeling. Even your own name may be helpful. If you do not have any feeling for anything else, then your own name will be helpful. There are many cases on record. One very famous mystic, Bukkh, used his own name, because he said, “I do not believe in any God. I do not know about him, I do not know what his name is. There are names I have heard, but there is no proof that they are his name. And I am in search of myself, so why not use my own name?” So he would use his own name, and just by using his own name he would drop down into silence.

If you do not have any love for anything else, use your own name. But it is very difficult because you are so condemning toward yourself that you do not have any feeling, you do not have any respect toward yourself. Others may be respectful toward you, but you are not respectful toward yourself.